HAZELBLUE FARM PHENOXY REPORT

Hazel Blue Farm under a shadow.

D.N.Dempsey.

Preface.
This is an account of the experiences of a central north island farmer on the use and effects of using Phenoxy (hormone) pasture weed sprays. These are group of selective herbicides, including 245T, 24D, 24DB, MCPA, MCPB, in their various formulations. Millions of litres are sprayed onto farmland in N.Z. and around the world, by plane, helicopter, ground machines and by hand, to selectively take out many flat and brush weeds without harming grasses and clovers or many cereal crops. From farming and weed control before hormone sprays in the early fifties, to using them and the devastating effects they had on the stock health, and on ours, after several years of use. Having to give up dairying because of the health effects, in 1973, of the improvement in health over eight years of not using them, then finally, starting to use them again in the early eighties. Of the severe health problems that again resulted, the loss of cattle, the testing and trials carried out to find the cause, and the dramatic improvement in health when we stopped using them. Of reading of endless reports on trials testing these chemicals for their safety, and going to conferences at Ruakura and Massey to try to learn from the latest research findings. The vets and my doctors and I tried everything we could think of, to find out what was causing the problems. Finally the realization, after over thirty years of use, that the spray had to be the cause, and that the scientific tests had all been done on the chemical and its direct effect on animals, especially on the contaminant Dioxin, and not on the indirect effects coming through the food chain. This highly dangerous chemical, dioxin, was very high on the public perspective at the time, and acted as a smoke screen and prevented science from seeing the real effect, which was in the hormone residue in the soil and was coming back through the food chain to disrupt the animal endocrine systems, especially the thyroid. The purpose of this account is to bring these effects to the notice of the medical and scientific community and to have thoroughly tested what happens in the soil. Just exactly what is causing the problems, how long it stays in the soil and whether and how it breaks down, and how it moves in the soil? For instance, the cattle grazing the pastures made very dramatic improvements, in the first three years after spraying ceased. But was this because the chemical was leaching down below the main grass root zone and perhaps into the ground water, or was it breaking down into a harmless form in the soil? Its easy to look back in retrospect, but it seems incredible that it took over thirty years for us to deduce what was really happening. Donald N. Dempsey.

PHENOXY HERBICIDES. 245T / 24D, IT'S EASY TO BE WISE AFTER!

It was 1950, and at 16 yrs. it was a big wonderful world out there with schooling finished and a burning desire to go dairying. I had already been supplying the local butter factory with surplus cream, from up to five house cows, for three years. With the help of family and friends we built a new dairy shed, 3 double bail, internal race, steel bails, 4 ft. plastered walls and fully concreted yard, real state of the art" in those days! All this and 22 Jersey heifers and the use of about 30 acres of my parent's farm spelt bliss to me. There was over 200 acres of rolling pumice country still to be developed. Very poor bush sick land had completely reverted back to very poor scrub, moss, and "prickle toe over the hard times of the depression. At one time it was so bad that " Even the rabbits had to go over the road to the neighbour's, for a feed "! In fact the whole valley had reverted to scrub and wild pigs, with the war following the great depression, so I was not alone in redeveloping the land. The challenge was exhilarating to me, to grow grass and produce exports for my country, from land that wouldn't grow anything previously. And anyway, I had science on my side; cobalt for the "bush sickness", selenium for white muscle disease, and fancy fertilizer mixes, tractors and chain saws to clear and cultivate the land. Oh, life was good and there was more to come, vaccines and antibiotics for diseases and, even more wonderful, hormone weed sprays to control weeds. No more back breaking pulling, cutting and grubbing and using "dangerous" chemicals like Sodium Chlorate and Atlacide. Just a simple boom spray once or twice a year, and "hay presto" the weeds disappeared, leaving the pasture to "grow clean and green"! It was a good life with good friends and an excellent community. Then slowly, over the next few years, things changed. I had more problems with calf rearing, white scours, worms, and the odd death from Black leg and milk fever. The cows didn't seem to be reaching the production levels that the standard of "clean green" pasture would indicate they should, and seemed more susceptible to disease. Pigs were dying of things I'd never heard of, let alone had any trouble with. My enthusiasm for life waned too, as I increasingly had difficulty in motivating myself to get out and get things done or to take my place in community affairs. I still wanted to, and still had the same ambitions and aims and they still appeared perfectly attainable, but I just didn't seem to have the energy. I suspected more trace element and fertilizer problems because of the very poor Taupo ash, pumice soils that I was on. So I studied up on them, going to farm conferences, at Massey and Ruakura, consulting with scientists, and doing properly controlled trials on my pastures, and especially, the calves. Cobalt and Selenium were the only ones that still showed up as being necessary, especially Selenium, because, in those days we weren't allowed to put it on in our fertilizer, as we can now. Calves were becoming a real problem to rear and I was loosing the odd cow from unknown causes, and milk fever was becoming a big problem, I was buying the bottles of calcium by the box full, mastitis was also very bad. My own health was deteriorating badly, my joints 3

were wearing at an extraordinary rate, especially the hip joints, and I was having great difficulty in getting around the farm. I found I could get around a lot better in bare feet, much to the bemusement of my friends and relations! I had to modify the controls of my tractors, so that I could drive them comfortably, by sitting on one side. My younger brother had by this time taken over the steep hill country of the family farm and my father had retired to Owhango to concentrate on local council business as chairman. In 1965 I built a new dairy shed on the farm and, because my hips were so bad, designed the bails so that I could reach to put the milking cups on the cows, by having the cows step up onto a stand and I stepped down into a small pit. Herringbone sheds were becoming popular about that time, but I didnt like them and wanted to build a rotary. This wasnt permitted because they were considered unhygienic and too difficult to clean. I tried to employ labour, but found most just wanted a few weeks holiday in the country, and the genuinely interested ones, that stayed for any greater length of time, slowly became sick themselves and found it necessary to move on. One boy I remember in particular, a Maori and a really good lad, intelligent and a good worker. At first he got on very well, but after a few months he slowed right up and struggled around looking like he had a steel band around his head, slowly squeezing his brain functions to a standstill. I knew the feeling well; it was like trying to think your way through a heavy chemical fog. We came home one day and he had gone! We went through seventeen would be farm cadets in one season at one stage! By this time I couldn't do much spot spraying of the ever-encroaching thistles, ragwort, and other weeds, and was getting further and further behind with my work, so had to use contractors to do it by aerial spraying, boom spraying and the use of fertilizer with 24D dust added. This was the worst as it drifted badly and the whole farm reeked of it that spring, and cabbage trees and other useful plants suffered badly. Even the pine trees grew twisted stems because of it. I didn't use it again. In some ways the ragwort was becoming worse because of the development of resistant multiple crown plants which re-grew each year. By this time (1972/73) I couldn't cope on my own so tried to employ a share milker to look after the herd of nearly 100 cows by then, while I went contracting on a tractor I had extensively modified so that I could drive it. By this time I had to send the calves off the farm to rear because diseases were getting so bad. This didn't work out because of stock health and low production, so I had to give up dairying. I kept the beefier cows and put beef bulls over them and sold the calves as weaners so that I didn't have to worry about their survival through the autumn and winter. It was an easy care system so that I could concentrate on my tractor work, to supplement the reduced farm income. At first I lost quite a few calves with white scours and the few replacement heifers I kept had to be well looked after for them to survive the worms and clostridial diseases, etc. All weed control was stopped too, and surprisingly, after the first year when all the multi crown plants had flowered and died naturally, the ragwort wasn't as bad as before. My hip joints were so bad that something had to be done, I had great difficulty getting on and off the tractor and dreaded going on farms that had a lot of gates to open and shut. Artificial hip joints had been experimented on for about 10 years by then, but the surgeons were very reluctant to operate on someone my age, under 40, as they could offer me only an 80% chance of success and about 10 yrs of use. I needed more than that! But I 4

was desperate, so in April 1975 they replaced both hip joints, giving me back 1.5 inches in height that had worn off the softened joints. Over the next few years our health and that of the animals improved, although I didn't associate it with having stopped using hormone sprays, at the time. I was too busy with my contracting business to think about it. The blackberry and barberry were becoming a problem, though, and badly needed attention, but before I could do anything about them, disaster struck in the form of a fire, which destroyed our home in 1977. It was Labour weekend and the 3 oldest children had come with me for the weekend. We intended to camp on the job in an old caravan I towed behind the tractor, when working away from home. We were just setting up the caravan when the owner of the property came over and told us the fire brigade had been called to our home. We rushed straight home again, to a raging inferno, with the local fire brigade and neighbour's battling to save nearby sheds and equipment. All those years of work and plans and hopes reduced to ashes and burnt twisted iron and gaunt blackened concrete piles in just a few minutes of roaring inferno, fanned by a dry South Westerly gale. A row of Lawsonianas beside the remains of a big shed near the house, had blackened haggard bottoms where all the lower branches had been scorched off, because of the wind, leaving only the tops intact. The $7,000 insurance seemed pitifully inadequate. I wasn't allowing for our friends. A country community, especially one over 30 miles from the nearest town, is something very special. Within three days they had tidied up an old house only half a mile away and provided us (we had 4 children, including a baby girl of 1 yr.) with everything we needed, from all necessary furniture down to nappies for the baby and food and promises of help with rebuilding. They did too, from helping with ideas and drawing up plans, cutting trees on the farm for timber, to concreting foundations and putting the roof on. We spent 3 years working on the new house and they were the best years of my life, with my health improving in spite of the immense stress involved with the long hours of work and responsibility. We moved into our new house as soon as the roof and outer walls were closed in; the house warming party will be remembered for a very long time! It was now six years since we had used any hormone sprays. The cattle too, were doing surprisingly well, in spite of not being looked after very well in those extremely busy few years. So was the blackberry! It was spreading out at and astonishing rate, in leaps of up to five metres a year, from where seedlings had established after a dry season in 1975, when the ground cover was opened up by over grazing. So, as soon as we could, after moving into the house, in the autumn of 1980, we started a big spray program to wipe out the blackberry. By then we were feeling very fit and motivated, and expected to clear it all up in two or three years. We tried all the available sprays and put it on strictly according to the label recommendations. The only one that had much effect was 245T, and even then the weeds re grew each year, necessitating annual re spraying. We used the big tractor with a bulldozer blade on the front. Driving into the big heaps as far as possible and by standing on the roof, the children could just reach over the top of the biggest heaps, with the high-pressure spray guns. We seemed to get a really good kill at first, so it was very disappointing to see it re grow the following year. We had badly underestimated the problem. So each late summer autumn we thoroughly grazed out each paddock with the herd of breeding cows, after they had weaned their calves, and then 5

sprayed the blackberry, while the cattle cleaned up the next paddock. That way the cattle never came in contact with the spray, they went onto silage in the winter and didn't really graze the sprayed areas properly, until the following autumn when they gave each paddock another hard grazing ready to spray again. There seemed to be no direct effect on our health from using the spray, but by the third year we were loosing the odd cow and the calves weren't doing as well. More problems with white scours, worms and clostridial diseases like tetanus and black leg. We found that it was harder to get our work done on time and I was running out of energy and my joints were getting sore again. This was happening so slowly and in such a subtle way that, at first we didn't realize what was happening, and I sort of felt guilty about getting so "lazy". By mid 1983 I was getting very concerned. My mental concentration was getting bad, with periods of confused thinking and extremely absentminded, with chronic fatigue and sore joints. My doctor couldn't help so sent me to a psychologist - I felt I was going crazy! Plenty of tests were done but nothing came from them and nobody had any idea as to what was causing the problem. It was getting extremely difficult, especially in the autumn and early winter, to even motivate myself to go to the doctor, Let alone try to get across to them what was wrong. Like the cattle I looked all right, and all the tests were negative, so the doctors seem to think you are having them on and wasting their time. Vets were a lot more helpful - they had the odd dead beast to explain and no matter how good the beast looks, or tests, it's not much use for anything after it's dead! At that stage, the farm was designated a so called," sentinel farm", which meant I filled out a form each month, with the help of the local M.A.F. officer, on weather, pasture and stock health. Nobody could come up with any answers so I intensified my own efforts to come up with a solution to the problem. I started doing post-mortems of all the cattle that died and studied up on trace elements etc. (the soil here being deficient in some elements.) I also turned to the "alternative" medicines and treatments, to see if they could help. I am very grateful for the genuine concern, moral support, encouragement and advice and treatment of symptoms that I received from many people. I started experimenting with trace elements again, first with Selenium, and much to the horror of my doctor, started dosing myself. It had a good effect on the animals in the past so why not on me - most of my food came from off the same deficient soil. I had very high hopes at that stage of a miracle cure, so was somewhat nonplussed when it had absolutely no effect on the chronic fatigue, joint problems, depression, etc. However, later on, after I'd stopped taking it, an irregular heartbeat problem that had been bothering me, came back and I realized the Selenium had cured it and that also I was no longer suffering spontaneous nosebleeds that I had had all my life. So I went back to dosing myself with Selenium to control them, until I was able to put the element on in fertilizer which solved the problems permanently. My thanks to Professor Marion Robinson of the University of Otago for the advice and blood tests she graciously carried out for me. (Warning - Selenium is a deadly poison taken in excess - don't experiment unless you are sure of dosage and existing blood levels.) Next I wanted to try other elements like Cobalt, Zinc, Boron etc, and found that I could 6

buy tablets of a lot of them from chemists, but found it took too long to try each individually and I just didn't have the time. So to speed things up I took a so-called "shotgun" mix of a multi-vitamin mineral mix. I felt sure I had some response to this, so studied the individual ingredients and selecting a few likely ones, and tried them separately. To cut a long story short, it eventually came down to Cobalt in the form of cobalamin or Vit. B12. I learnt from my studies (I was by then getting the local library service to send away for special medical books for me) that we don't absorb Cobalt (even in the form on Vit. B12) very well in our stomachs and it is often given by injection - especially to women with red blood-cell problems. I felt a right Charley asking my doctor for an injection - he asked if I thought I was having menstrual problems!! (Later I changed to another Doctor). Anyway he eventually gave in (it is a common and harmless dose) and gave me an injection. The effect was amazing. Within about an hour, while I was still in town trying to do some shopping, I had the almost irresistible urge to lie down in the street and go to sleep! This effect gradually wore off over the next few days and it really was very disappointing to find no effect in the fatigue etc. However, nearly a week later, I really did start feeling much better. It was a wonderful feeling, for the first time for ages I was able to do my work and enjoy life again. I found I had to have a repeat dose about every 18 days and my blood test levels were kept well above normal levels. I still don't know why B12 had the effect it did, but it even helped sick cows - no cure but a great help and it eventually led me to suspect the thyroid gland. At this stage I was beginning to suspect that the hormone sprays may be implicated in the farm's problems and many of my alternative medicine friends were convinced it was dioxins in 245T. I obtained copies of reports and read all I could find out about it. It all seemed to be a regular witch-hunt with all the scientific tests etc. being done having negative results, so we went on using it through 1983 and 1984. By autumn 1985 we were so crook we just didn't have the energy to put much on. We had tried everything else but nothing worked on the resistant blackberry we had, let alone on the barberry, which was becoming a problem. Winter 1985 stock health wasn't good at all, with 1 cow per month dying; June abscessed liver, July cow stopped eating, became lethargic and died 3 days later; August died suddenly no symptoms. About then we were visited by a new and enthusiastic county noxious weeds officer who tried to allay our fears and persuaded us to spray 30 acres of ragwort with a special mix of Phenoxy (hormone) herbicides in October. Most people at this time (not knowing post-mortem results and symptoms) assumed our stock were dying from ragwort poisoning, there was plenty around but the cattle didn't seem to eat it at all. There were no further cattle deaths that spring, although white scours was a big problem in the calves and several died. In autumn 1986 however, as soon as the cattle started to clean up the accumulated roughage, especially around where the blackberry had been sprayed the previous year, (and they were grazing the hormone sprayed paddocks too) we struck trouble. Two cows died in March and 4 more in April, mostly sudden deaths, with the only warning being reluctance to shift to the next paddock in the rotation. That autumn, a new weed spray came on the market called "Escort" (Metsulfuron) - it 7

claimed to be non-hormone, so we got the noxious weeds officer to take away the remaining hormone concentrate and used the new spray on the blackberry. We were too crook to do much, though, but applied enough for a fair trial in May and June. This was very late and it didn't seem to have any effect at first. But next spring all plants sprayed died, even barberries, if sprayed very thoroughly, failed to re-grow. Along with the cattle my health was also deteriorating. Joints and bones were softening badly. Ribs crumpled far too easily and I had three lots of broken ribs in the autumn alone. The bone was dissolving away from the metal shafts of the artificial joints, resulting in the shaft being forced down deeper into the thighbone and the walls became dangerously thin. I was to go into Middlemore Hospital the following summer for bone grafts and replacement of the artificial joints. I had slowed up to the point that I didn't know what job I could put off or postpone next. All I wanted to do was to lie down and rest. I couldn't care less what went on and only wanted to be left in peace. It was only by rationalizing everything, and the conclusion that I really was making progress with my research, trials and post mortems, that kept me going. The farm vet and the MAF vets and livestock officer were being very helpful and the local librarian too, because she came up with a large book on the function and diseases of the human thyroid gland. I had been continuing my experimenting with trace elements and had found that a mixture of Iodine and Vit B12 seemed to help quite a lot. This mixture was discovered by Aucklander Wally Lysart and sold under the name of "Tracel". I also learnt that if the thyroid gland wasn't working properly the stomach lining didn't contain something called "intrinsic factor" and couldn't absorb Vit B12. The book on the thyroid tied a lot of loose ends together and had a long list of symptoms of Hypothyroidism (the opposite of hyperthyroidism or hyper activity of the thyroid). This list listed nearly all the symptoms that I was suffering from myself - the mental dullness, inability to concentrate, confused thinking, shocking memory, slurred speech, periods of impossible fatigue, lack of energy to even keep warm, low temperature and heart rate, lack of sweating, cramps and persistent cough (oedema?) and of course the soft bones, broken ribs and painful joints. The cattle also appeared to suffer from some and both cattle and myself had much lower general resistance to all sorts of things like infections, metabolic upsets especially milk fever, allergies and cancer. I showed this to my doctor and he quickly wrote me a prescription for thyroid hormone tablets, then I asked for a thyroid function test. The test showed my hormone level was 18 - well within the normal range of 16 to 24+. It is unlikely that any doctor would prescribe the hormone at such a test level now. But anyway I was able to try the tablets before getting the test results. After a few weeks on the thyroid hormone, 90% of the symptoms slowly disappeared and I was able to return to normal work and enjoyment of life. It was like getting a whole new lease of life and was the most exhilarating experience I have ever had - I felt (on working it out carefully) over 20 years younger. With the help of the Tracel and boron (which seemed to help my bones to retain and build up calcium again) my joints and bones toughened up and I found I no longer needed to have my hips operated on again that year. In fact when the specialist showed me the X-rays taken before and after, even I could see how the bone had thickened up and strengthened again. I also found that I no longer needed to have the B 12 injections. 8

In the meantime the cows were still dying all through 1986. It was like a nightmare and in the 12 months up to March 1987 we lost 23, mostly cows - nearly a quarter of our herd. Many others were sick and became dangerous to shift because occasionally one would suddenly charge without warning. Whenever possible, I had to use the tractor to shift them. Very often it was the brightest looking cows that would be dead next. Bright eyed, alert ears and last out of the paddock. For instance one day I noticed one cow was missing when I went to shift them, so drove the tractor down to the water hole to check. She was standing nearby, looking a bit odd so I stepped off the tractor to check on her. The next thing I remember was her charging me and of trying to dodge her around and around the tractor until I gained enough time to dive underneath it! I waited until she gave up and headed back up the track towards the other cows. She stopped at the bottom of a steep part of the track and when I gently tried to get her moving again she charged me again and I had to retreat under the tractor again. When she settled down I reached up on the side of the tractor away from her and slipped the tractor into low gear and started it and slowly moved away clinging to the side of the tractor to keep out of sight. I came back a few hours later to check on her and found she had dropped dead beside the track. Post mortems of dead cows showed a strange variety of unusual abnormalities. Calves didn't do well either, and things like clostridial diseases (black leg in particular) became quite a problem in spite of full vaccinations. The vets recommended I try vaccinating twice a year. It was about this time that, on sending twelve cull cows to the works, I had two of them condemned with malignant neoplasms. I didnt know what that meant so rang the works vet. He told me that they had a form of internal invasive cancer. I asked how common it was and was told it normally occurred in about one in ten thousand cows. I had two out of twelve! The vets had tried all the tests they could think of, with negative results. They were a great help with the PM samples etc. but nothing consistent turned up except they all seemed to have a lot of fluid in their tissues. I explained the effect thyroid hormone had had on me and few days later the local MAF officer rang to tell me they had heard of new research and testing of thyroid hormone levels in cattle being done at Ruakura. So we selected eight of my cattle and six of a neighbour, as controls, and took blood samples for analysis. Two of the worst cows were dead before we received the results. I was told they had some of the lowest thyroid hormone levels they had ever tested at Ruakura! (See attached table). At last we had something conclusive to go on. The neighbour's cattle that did not graze land that had been sprayed had normal levels. All of mine had below normal levels. In fact, for the first time we had a test that matched the health status of the animals they came from.

Copy of blood test results that finally solved the problem.

Thyroid blood test. Sent to: Sender: Owner: Species: Animal-Tissue. Tag/No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 MAF Taumarunui. P.O. Box 366, Taumarunui. Received: 16/01/87. Accession No. 87-00547.

Ruakura Diagnostic Laboratories. A. Brown. (Taumarunui Vet. Services.) D.N.Dempsey.(Of cattle) Bovine.

CONTROL. Off Neighbours farm. (No hormone use.)

Results. Comments. TT4 TT3 FT4 FT3 nmol/L nmol/L pmol/L pmol/L 55.70 2.40 7.30 4.70 74.70 3.00 7.50 6.10 90.40 2.70 9.50 5.20 54.30 2.20 5.10 3.50 70.10 3.20 8.50 6.00 90.00 3.00 9.50 4.80

EFFECTED HERD. (6 Yrs Phenoxy herbicide use.)

Tag/No. nmol/L nmol/L nmol/L nmol/L 59 16.30 0.24 3.10 0.60 Died 17/2/87scouring. 60 54.20 1.40 7.90 2.40 71 52.00 1.40 8.10 2.40 No Tag. 31.20 0.96 5.40 1.70 Died 6/3/87,weak 7yrs.(Thyroid dissection done.) Yellow. 18.30 0.35 3.00 0.70 Died 17/2/87.Scouring. Black. 65.60 1.50 7.60 2.20 Red. 18.10 0.20 5.80 0.80 10/4/87.Cancer eye. X4. 90.70 2.20 9.00 3.60 See note below.*

CONTROL. Average. EFFECTED. Average. EFFECTED (with symptoms.)Average. NORMAL RANGE.

72.53 43.30 36.53

50-60

2.75 1.03 0.86

2.5-3.0

7.90 6.24 5.84

6.5-7.0

5.05 1.80 1.54

2.5-3.5

*This cow was not showing symptoms of disease and was included to have lump under jaw checked by vet. If her test results are excluded from averages, the difference from the controls are markedly increased.

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The next question was what we could do. It was February 1987 and my neighbour had a surplus of grass and agreed to take all the adult cattle for a month. We couldn't dose them every day with hormone tablets, so the next best thing seemed to be to inject them with Iodine to try to boost the thyroid. We used oil based "Lipiodol". We injected every second one so that we could monitor the results. Over the next few months, of the seven cows that died, six had not received Iodine, so the Iodine obviously helped. By this time it was two years since I had last put on hormone weed sprays (the 2,4,D mix in the spring of 1985) and the stock were visibly improving and the main losses were during grazing of a Brassica crop in August. I assumed that the goitrogens in the swedes had affected the still diseased thyroids. Thyroid glands from dead cows sent for laboratory analysis showed them to be atrophied or inactive and small. After they got over the crop, stock health improved rapidly and the last sick cow died in December 1987. We then went 18 months without losses, easily the longest period in time since before the advent of the hormone sprays. You can imagine how I felt about it after all I had been through. Calves were doing a lot better, a lot less scour and worm problems and no deaths from Black Leg disease, in spite of the fact that they accidentally received only half the recommended dose of vaccine in summer 1988. So I discontinued vaccinating in 1989 to see what would happen, and still didn't loose any. I knew the risks I was running but just had to try one more trial! So stopped vaccinating altogether and haven't had any cases of Clostridial diseases since. That year we didn't have any sick calves from anything except for a few born too big and dying at birth, from 2-year old heifers. I've always had to nurse the young heifers along towards having their first calf and feed them extra well. But that winter they were doing so much better that they all got too fat and the calves too big and we had to assist a large number of them to calve; a problem I haven't had in all my framing experience. It hadn't been easy to fatten steers here in the past, they just didn't seem to grow well, but the improvement in stock health was so much that the 1 1/2 year old steers, that had been born after I had stopped using the Phenoxy type sprays, had almost caught up to the 2 1/2 year old ones born in the bad year of 1986. The most spectacular effect on the herd was in the behaviour of the animals. They settled down and became very docile and easy to handle and I no longer had to worry about them getting upset and panicky and the odd animal charging me. My health had one more minor setback in the first half on 1988 and it happened so inadvertently, but as it is so very relevant, it must be included in this story. It came about this way: we had a lot of hot dry weather in January and the vegetable garden near the house was drying out and the garden hose was just too short to reach the whole area. So I found another old length of hose that had been used to hose down the car and other farm machinery for the last 8 or 9 years. Previous to that, it had been used for blackberry spraying for a short time, but being with only low grade plastic garden hose wasn't very satisfactory for the purpose. This old length of hose was joined onto the existing garden hose and used only about three times to run the sprinklers, being left out in the hot sun in between uses; it must have absorbed some hormone residue from in the plastic. 11

Nothing much happened at first, except the vegetables didn't seem to be growing very fast. About 6 weeks later my fatigue symptoms started to come back. On closer examination of the vegetables in the garden I found some susceptible weeds showing the typical hormone damage of twisted stems and curled distorted leaves. Other things had just simply stopped growing and a lot of carrots were white-fleshed. We stopped using fruit and vegetables out of the garden but I still had a job to think clearly or work efficiently, and worse, I started to get broken ribs again. This culminated on the 7th of June with a rather silly fall caused by mental confusion and forgetting about an electric fence wire, which touched my head rendering me unconscious and falling down a bank onto my tractor. I ended up in hospital with a broken arm and bruises etc. after the resulting fall. My oldest son (mid twenties) had been helping on the farm and had been full of energy and intended to return to Australia for the shearing season in April, but became very grumpy and lethargic and couldn't motivate himself to go until much later in the year. Yet another lesson learnt about the effects of hormone weed spray. Other members of my family were affected in a lesser degree but don't like admitting it or talking about it. It seems to depend at what period of time they were at home, their diet and age of exposure. Most of the children went through a period of lack of concentration and motivation at school. I had the most exposure (in years, intensity and diet to the hormone and its residues) so was the most affected. Our health steadily improved again from then on. My need for Thyroxin gradually reduced over the years and I was able to stop taking hormone tablets after nine years, as my body came back to normal. An interesting aspect of this hormone treatment is that my blood test levels (thyroid hormone) had been up to three times the normal without causing symptoms of hyperactivity or side effects. It's like something in my body was inhibiting the action of the hormone. I used several methods of deciding on the dose rate of Thyroxin, the main one being my pulse rate. It was very low and I tried to keep it between 50 and 56 ppm. If it went below 53 I started to slow up, below 47 I became mentally confused, cold and lethargic, below 42 and I became so confused that I couldn't even count my pulse rate accurately. My hips finally had to be replaced (for the second time) in 1995/96, about the same time I was able to stop taking Thyroxin, and my general health continued to improve steadily right up to this year, 2002, when I was diagnosed with Prostate cancer. I am using the time while I am here (Aug/Sept) at the Lions Cancer Lodge at Waikato hospital, receiving radiology treatment, to write all this down. There is a very high probability that it was initiated in those bad years of the mid eighties, because of the very high rate of cancer in the cattle herd at that time. Also, I was intrigued to find that the men getting prostate cancer treatment with me, were predominately farmers or ex farmers. Some, and one in particular, that I had shown my treatise to, was absolutely convinced on reading it ,that they had suffered the exact same problems and had to give up farming because of it. I suspect that many farming families have had to leave the land over the years because of not being able to cope. In retrospect, I think the reason science hasn't become aware of this hormonal effect from the use of Phenoxy herbicides is because of the extraordinary preoccupation of the public, and therefore the research, on the chemical Dioxin. This has, in effect, been like a great smoke screen, hiding what was really going on and diverting researchers away from the 12

true dangers. I sincerely hope that this can now be rectified and the necessary research can be carried out. Getting this cancer has been a wake up call to me to get my experiences down in print and try to get copies to anyone involved in medical research, in the hope that these experiences will help to gain a better understanding of what is going on. Up until now I have been so intent on getting my own life and that of my family back on line, that I haven't been able to put much time into getting my experiences properly documented and eventually researched. I have been to Ruakura and talked to the superintendent there, I've put in submissions to the revue of the use of 24D by the Pesticides Board, I am in contact with Dow Chemicals in New Plymouth, and earlier I tried to put warning letters in all the farming magazines (with some very interesting reactions!) Chemicals are an integral part of our technological society, and even I acknowledge the need to continue using them, but we must be ever vigilant in monitoring for bad side effects and to intensify the search for more biologically acceptable methods. It appears from my experiences that these Phenoxy sprays get into the soil and leave residues that are changed to a form that is taken up by plants, without harm to them, and enter the food chain for our animals that graze them, and on into the food chain to humans. It worries me that I can still pick this up from dairy products and other foods produced on farms where 2,4-D, in it's various forms (Phenoxy weed sprays), are used to control weeds. I am convinced that many other people are, at least sub clinically, effected by these residues in their food. It may, for instance, be a contributing factor in the high rates of osteoporosis and some forms of cancer in New Zealand. 2,4,5-T shouldn't be a problem now; because production has ceased and it is only a matter of time before it works its way out of the system. The pasture weeds that I used to control with chemicals, are now adequately controlled with biological methods, (flea beetles for ragwort, seed head weevils and host specific fungi for thistles and so on.) But there are millions of litres of Phenoxy sprays still used on our farms. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all those people that were able to help me over the years: Drs Chick, Liley, Fraser, Chang and Manu; Vets Keith Patterson, Keven Crewes and Allan Brown, but especially Keith Patterson; MAF livestock officer "Shorty" Maunder; and public health nurse Carol O'Donnell. I would like to hear from any other farmer who has had similar experiences or who can add information, and anyone doing medical research that may be able to make use of any aspect of my experiences of the last fifty years. Don Dempsey, Ph. 07-896-6264. Hazelblue Farm, Lower Retaruke, R.D.2, Owhango. 3990.

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Post script and update.

14/10/2011. The cattle continue to grow and fatten very well indeed and are a pleasure to handle, being so good-natured and placid. I still find it hard to believe they are the same cattle! It is years since we have had any dislocated hips or broken bones, or milk fever, nor have we had any cases of Clostridial deceases like Tetanus or Blackleg, only one case of cancer. Skin cancer on a very white skinned steer. Or deaths from unknown causes. Calf scours and worms are only a fraction of the problem they were. Ragwort poisoning has disappeared, even though we dont do any control at all, except around the house gardens and pull a bit out of the hay crops, and to think we used to use the hormone sprays to control the ragwort so that we didnt get ragwort poisoning! Now the Flea beetle controls it very well on its own. For thirty years we looked at every aspect of our farming to try to find what was causing the problems, without luck, until we stopped using Phenoxy sprays. I cannot emphasize too much the fact that stopping using the sprays was the only thing that we changed in the way we farmed. My own health has continued to improve (allowing for the fact I am getting older) and my cancer hasnt come back. Believe me, I really appreciate life and get an immense amount of satisfaction out of catching up on jobs I was unable to complete years ago. I really just want to get on with my life and forget the past, but time is going by at an extraordinary rate and I really do feel guilty about not doing more to get this matter scientifically investigated. What is happening to this chemical in the soil? How is it effecting the animal endocrine system? Is it breaking down in the soil or is it leaching down into the water table? Questions that I cant answer myself but would love to know the answer to, so that I can warn other farmers and consumers of food grown on sprayed land. I think it would be far better to find out a few answers before getting it publicised in the press because of over reaction and the possible effect it could have on New Zealands clean green image and exports. I have had offers to publish it in the farming media but prefer, for the time being, to try to get it to medical and scientific research people first. First it would be necessary to duplicate what happened on my farm and this may be a suitable subject for a doctoral or masters students to do for their thesis. It would involve setting up two grazing areas, one sprayed and one not sprayed and two equal mobs of calves to start with. To accelerate the onset of symptoms I would suggest spraying after every grazing but using very low rates of spray so as not to damage pasture plants like clover. If possible I would like to be involved in this early stage. Anyway I am trying to learn of any research being done that may be relevant and making my experiences available to the scientists so that they may gain a different perspective of the subject and, eventually, I am sure that this will be properly investigated. These are extremely useful chemicals and I am hoping that, once this effect is understood, that it may be possible to reformulate them so that they are safe. D.N.Dempsey.

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About the writer.

D.N.Dempsey, Hazelblue farm, Lower Retaruke, R.D.2, Owhango.3990. 02/08/06. I was born here, in the sheltered, inland valley of the Retaruke River, with its unique climate and geology. My grand parents came out from Ireland in 1886 and drew a block of land in a ballot, in 1911 and brought their family of ten into the uncleared steep hill country and literally carved a farm out of the heavy native bush, including pit sawing timber for the family home, while they lived in tents. Some of the sons went to the First World War, and then had to contend with the great depression, when many of the settlers were forced to leave their farms. I was born in the middle of the Depression and lived through those extremely difficult times, and World War Two. The schools had closed, so I only had a few years on home Correspondence Schooling before starting dairying under my own name in 1947, supplying cream to the local butter factory. I had 30 acres of the family farm that had been developed and continued the clearing of the scrub and putting up buildings, etc as I increased my dairy herd, until my health made it impossible to continue, in 1973. Owing to my stubborn and determined Irish ancestry, I refused to give up the farm, as so many others, I have spoken to, who used the Phenoxy herbicides had to do, and boosted my income by modifying a tractor and going contracting with it, while the family looked after the beef herd while I was away. I have always had an enquiring mind and would have loved to have been an agricultural scientist. That was impossible, so I have been an avid experimenter and inventor since, holding two patents and carried out many trials. Apart from the ones on my stock and soils to find out what the problems were caused by. I have a trial orchard of blueberries, (now a commercial operation) another of hazelnuts in collaboration with the NZ Tree Crops Assoc. and a truffier for Dr Ian Hall of Crop & Food in Invermay, (we are now one of the first to sell truffles in the Southern hemisphere). Also I have been keeping a Climatological Station for NIWA for over fifty years, keeping my own data base, to draw up temperature and rainfall trend lines, etc for the local news letters and for submissions to district and regional councils. We have trial plantings of from fifteen to twenty varieties of different types of trees for conservation and timber (Paulownias, Poplars, Willows and Bamboos and others) and are selfsufficient in timber and many different fruits and vegetables. I am involved in a research project with the Central Districts Tree Crops Assoc. looking at the micronutrients of heritage apples compared to the modern varieties. We have found one local variety that has the highest levels of health giving flavinoids, anti oxidants etc of any tested, so it is all very interesting. I live with my youngest daughter, Isabel, and her physically challenged, secondary school son Cameron, on the farm. My first wife died of cancer a few years ago and, as my health has been so good, I have recently remarried to Mary. Don Dempsey. (Phone number 07-896-6264)

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